The Marauders: Year Four

Who Do You Think It Is?

Who Do You Think It Is?

"Who do you reckon he's seeing?" Sirius asked, staring at Remus's back as he ran ahead of them down the path to Hogsmeade. Remus was laughing and calling for them to hurry up, his face was flushed as he looked back, his blonde hair hanging floppily over his forehead.

Sirius felt as though every detail of Remus had been magnified. Why was it, he wondered, that he'd been perfectly fine holding Rey at arm's length all summer, all through September, and then this... Rey finds a boyfriend and suddenly Sirius could think of a hundred thousand times he should've told Remus exactly what he was thinking, how he felt. A thousand different reasons why he'd been stupid to wait.

One of the reasons right at the moment was the way his hair was flopping over his forehead.

Last night, it'd been the little sigh that Remus made in the back of his nose when he'd laid down in the bed for the first time.

And just before that, it'd been the way he'd kept tossing his head to keep the stray hair from falling in his eyes while he was reading a textbook... the way he was dragging his finger along the page, mouthing the words as he read...

Sirius looked at James imploringly.

"Where do you reckon he even met whoever it is? Rey never goes anywhere without us, does he?" Sirius rubbed his chin, feeling the scruff that he really hadn't gotten rid of for Remus's sake yet. "Except the common room to study now and then... But, I mean, it can't be any of the other Gryffindors, can it?" Sirius said, "Surely we would've noticed...?"

James shrugged, "I still don't think it's anybody," he said. "I think Regulus was being the right little prat he is and trying to get a rise off you and it worked." He'd posed this theory to Sirius at least twenty times in the last twelve hours since they'd run into Regulus on the grounds, but Sirius still had yet to fully listen when James said it. Every time it had been the same - he'd just stared off at Remus for a few moments, then --

"But who do you think it is, though?"

James rolled his eyes.

Hogsmeade was bustling with people, all the Hogwarts students that had been more ambitious than the boys were already running about and filling up the shops. Remus had been the only one of the four that had been raring to go right at dawn, the other boys had dawdled and taken their time at getting ready until it'd been rather late in the morning and everyone else had already gone. Now, as they reached the square, Remus turned back, "See? We should've come earlier, when the first shops opened, now everything's crowded."

"Yeah, but Sirius needed his beauty sleep," James said. It had, indeed, been Sirius that had taken the longest to get ready, which was funny seeing as he was the one who had put on the least amount of effort into getting ready (he was still wearing the same shirt he'd slept in all night, a black shirt emblazoned with lavender letters reading Deep Purple).

"It's not easy being this good looking," Sirius replied. "I don't just wake up like this, you know."

"Actually, you literally do," Peter said. "Which is why it's so annoying."

Sirius grinned. He glanced at Remus to see if he was going to weigh in, but all Remus said was, "We need to go to Honeydukes first. I swear, if they've run out of double fudge bars... I'm going to kick you in the arse, Sirius Black."

They mulled about the candy shoppe for some time, Remus was pleased to find the double fudge bars and Sirius selected a pack of jelly slugs. James and Peter meanwhile bought practically the entire inventory between them, planning for future nights in the Shrieking Shack and just lazing about the dormitory. They were looking over some taffy bats by a display of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans when James suddenly said, "I have a brilliant idea for a prank sometime."